N15:first ride

Yesterday, after the trouble i had for my great mistake, i have had a first ride of 70 km.
The bike runs very well.
I cannot say that it brakes great even if has the hubs grinded with new shoes!.
The question is: why the rear wheel has a 18 rim instead than 19?.
The swinging arm and the rear loop/fender havecthe space for a 19 rim.
Ciao.
Piero

Piero, Can't answer your question about rim sizeb but the brakes should be decent - they should be as good as other drum brake Nortons. Is it the front, the back or both brakes that seem weak? Do you have the original single leading shoe front brake or the later twin leading shoe? Could the brake shoes be contaminated with oil or grease? Do the brakes make noise when you apply them?

Piero, Can't answer your question about rim sizeb but the brakes should be decent - they should be as good as other drum brake Nortons. Is it the front, the back or both brakes that seem weak? Do you have the original single leading shoe front brake or the later twin leading shoe? Could the brake shoes be contaminated with oil or grease? Do the brakes make noise when you apply them?

Click to expand...

Single leading shoes in the front.
Hubs very cleaned.
May be the new shoes need time to copy the hub faces?
Ciao
Piero

Might be worth using rubber cement to glue some sandpaper to the drums and sand a bit off the shoes checking that there is full contact. I assume your new shoes have no asbestos. (The original shoes almost certainly had asbestos). DO NOT SAND ASBESTOS SHOES.

I don't know the N15 in detail, but there can be an assembly mistake on cable-operated brakes. The operating arm can sometimes be installed the wrong way round so that when the brakes are applied, the arm moves towards the cable, taking some of the applied braking force away.

One of my early cars in the UK (a 1938 Austin Seven) had cable brakes, and a previous owner had made that mistake on reassembly.